John 5:30 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Christ asserts his Sonship: ‘I can of mine own self do nothing.’ Of course, that is not strictly correct. Christ can do all things of his own self. He is second person of the Godhead. He has divine power. But what he means is, he can do nothing which is out of step with the will of the Father because there is but one God. There is one divine essence. There is what we call the concert of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit all think the same. Their will is perfect. They are marvellously distinct, eternal members of the Godhead, and yet they are bound to be the same in viewpoint, in action, because they are all perfect. So they cannot be different from each other, and they share the divine essence. So while Christ does not mean that he is, as it were, spoon fed by the Father – his power for every act; he means he cannot act independently of the Father’s will. It is his way of saying, they think and they are alike and their will is identical. ‘I will not judge according to, just what I think,’ says Christ, ‘I will be the perfect judge, who will judge in accordance with the judgement of the Father.’